The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1887-07-08
FIGHTING THE FLAMES.

ated, and was at once attacked from the out
side, the men standing upon long line Of
cars which stood upon the switch next to the
wall. They had hardly reached this point Of
vantage when there was deafening explosion
which threw a section of the roof of the build
ing upward and dashed the upper portions of
the walls out toward the cars. Beams, brick
and timber came showering down upon the
men, and Matthew Gall, Tony Elliott, and
Joe Becker were carried back helpless and
taken to their homes.
The fire had been spreading rapidly enough
before, but this explosion helped it in all di-
rections, so that when the city contingent ar
rived second and third alarm was also
sounded, and Assistant Chief Musham called
for three extra engines. The desperate fight
at first was to keep the fire from getting
across Forty -second street south over the pine
chutes and runways to the great warehouses
there, and by the same means to the gigantic
packing-house across the railway tracks to
the west and into the sheds and pens of the
Stock Yards company across the Center ave
nue. tracks to the cast In the course of half
an hour that danger was avoided, and as the
men began to entertain thoughts of getting
into the three huge buildings that were now
blazing in all quarters, the explosion of half
dozen lard-rendering tanks followed each
other in quick succession, sending down the
greater part of the north and east walls of the
main building, and demolishing the south and
west walls of the engine house and fertilizing
building. Whether the first explosion was a
lard tank or not is not known, but the men
were watching for these later ones and no
one was seriously hurt, although the huge
heads of the tanks were blown twenty or
thirty feet from their places, and a car loaded
with ice standing near the tank-room wall
was blown completely from the track. The
killing of hogs is carried on in the upper
floors of the long building which stood next
to the Center avenue tracks, and when the
fire broke out there were $500 live porkers
standing on the third floor ready for Monday
mornings Strengthening. The men about the
place, as well as all the aid that could he sum-
moned from the adjoining houses and yards,
| undertook to drive them out through the
chute into the pens, but over 400 of them
| were finally abandoned and roasted and
smothered in the flames When the fire
reached that building the cries of the poor
animals were deafening, but of brief dura-
ton. Such was the fright of few that they
managed to leap out of the windows and fell
| TO the ground, distance of twenty-five or
| thirty feet singed and blistered, but still
| with life enough left to make the work of a
| policeman and an ak an act of charity.
| After the lard tanks exploded the fire au-
| thorities concluded that there could be no
safety inside the buildings for the firemen
| and for an hour and half the fire swept
| through them unrestrained, except by the
water thrown on them by the thirty engines
| from the outside.
About o'clock in the afternoon an acct
dent occurred which disabled several of the
city firemen. A party of them were en-
gagged in playing on the ruins, near por-
| ton of wall on the northeast corner of the
"A" house, when the wall suddenly fell in,
burying five of the men under it. They